[Sca-cooks] An Event Without a Feastwas Cookery book at Longleat House?

[David Friedman]

A couple of points, specifically on West Kingdom practices as I've 
observed them, vs those of some other kingdoms.

1. Almost all of the major WK kingdom events are camping events; I 
think 12th Night is the only exception. It's possible to do a feast 
at a camping event, of course, but a lot harder than at an indoor 
event in a site with a halfway decent kitchen. That may be one reason 
why the custom of having feasts as a routine part of an event didn't 
get established. My impression is that indoor events here not 
uncommonly have meals, although not always, and the meals are 
sometimes based on period recipes. The next local one is going to be 
a compromise--main dish provided, pot luck for the rest. Assuming 
they go through with current plans, the main dish is a compromise 
too--fylettes of galingale plus turkeys for those who for one reason 
or another don't eat pork. I've been asked to provide a selection of 
period recipes for possible potluck things, but of course guests will 
be free to ignore them if they wish.

2. Whether for that reason or others, the West Kingdom seems to have 
been relatively slow to get involved in period cooking. When we moved 
out here about fifteen years ago, almost nobody was doing it--one 
person in the Mists that knew of. I remember attending a class on 
"period recipes for lunches" or some similar title, where the "period 
recipes" were largely modern ethnic ones. The situation has improved 
a lot since then, due to the efforts of a variety of people--I don't 
think Elizabeth and I can take much of the credit, since we haven't 
been very active.

In the mid-seventies I and some SCA friends spent a month on a tour 
of the known world which included the West Kingdom. As best I could 
tell, nobody in the kingdom was cooking from period recipes at the 
time--the closest was a lady who was doing things along the lines of 
making her own sausages, starting with the pig, but not using period 
recipes to do it. By that time there were a number of people in the 
Middle and East doing period cooking, although it certainly wasn't 
the norm for events.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com